A little while back an old friend of mine from high school, David Martin,asked if he could refer someone from Arkansas to me for help with his “studio and music stuff”. I’m always game to hear music and meet new people, so I agreed to talk. Well, it turned out that what this guy really wanted was help with music he had already recorded – he needed someone to listen, critique, and mix. I asked him to send me what he had so that I could listen and get back to him. Well, after clearing my ears of a few back-to-back projects, I finally had a chance to dive into his repertoire. I’ll admit, I had some “Arkansas” preconceptions that might have made me a little skeptical about what I would be hearing, but the more I listened to the rough mixes Billy Ruben and the Elevated Enzymes sent, the more intrigued and enthused I became. By the time I had listened through a few times, I was pretty fired up by the well-crafted, high-energy, garage-rock-psychedelic amalgam Billy and crew had come up with. These tracks remind me of early Richard Hell, Stooges, Scene Creamers, and The Cramps… and I had to ask, “tell me what I can do to help!” The reply was that the band was looking for a mix engineer –and given the groovy stuff I was hearing, I was ready to get in there and shake/sharpen/some stuff up (or I jumped right in, I signed right on). First I needed to chisel down the list of eleven songs to four and create an interesting cross section of what Billy Rubens and the Elevated Enzymes are. To me these were the first of the bunch to introduce the world to.
I’m going to share “EP 1” with you. It’s a boisterous journey through 4 songs with Billy Ruben and the Elevated Enzymes. These four tunes will take you through the landscape of their imagination and remind you of how much fun music can be.